Formula 1 has certainly seen some wild starts over the years 🤯 Here's our Top 10 of crazy moments on the F1 grid – plus the opening seconds of races that stick in the memory 👇
Gilles Villeneuve, Ferrari 312T4 leads at the startOn April 8 1979, 24 Formula 1 cars were set to line up on the starting grid in Long Beach for the US Grand Prix West. At least, that was the plan…
The 1981 Belgian Grand Prix weekend in Zolder was struck by tragedy on Friday: An Osella mechanic, Giovanni Amadeo, was critically injured during practice after stumbling and being hit by Reutemann in the pitlane. He would succumb to his injuries the Monday after the race. The incident triggered protests from mechanics from all teams about the lack of safety in the pitlane.
As it happened, the organisers started the race as soon as Piquet had taken his proper grid spot, with Luckett still tending to the Arrows. Several cars managed to take avoiding action, but eventually the unfortunate mechanic was struck by the second Arrows of Siegfried Stohr. Luckett suffered multiple fractures in the horrifying incident, but made a full recovery.
Due to a problem with the start lights, which went from red to green and back to red, third-placed de Angelis hesitated to get going, holding up Patrick Tambay and Teo Fabi behind him. There was no hesitation on the other side of the grid, with Ayrton Senna vaulting up the order from tenth to fourth in his Toleman.
Teams were given a chance to repair the damage or prepare spare cars for a third start, which ran two hours late. Philippe Streiff was missing as Tyrrell had run out of cars! Several other drivers started from the pitlane. In the 13th grand prix of the season, it happened to be the first time a dominant McLaren-Honda was passed on track. Capelli secured second behind Prost and was well ahead of Thierry Boutsen’s Benetton.
His Ferrari team-mate Gerhard Berger went on to win the race, ahead of the Ligiers of Olivier Panis and Eric Bernard.Michael Schumacher, Ferrari F2001, Ralf Schumacher, Williams FW23 BMW, Mika Häkkinen, McLaren MP4-16 Mercedes at the Start GridWith the advent of the safety car, red flagging a race because of a single grid stall is a thing of the past.
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